Evening gents!
I have re-read the book
High in the empty blue, by Alex Revell. Great Squadron history.
One thing that makes me curious is the fight 7 May 1917, when Rhys-Davids
barely made it for his own lines with a dud engine. He was fighting a "bright red and green beggar" he states in a letter. Mr. Revell states that this plane was flown by
Kurt Wolff, Jasta 11. What evidence can he put forward?
If I am not wrong, Kurt Wolff was posted to command Jasta 29 6th May.
And that late flight from Jasta 11 fighting 56 Squadron that evening was led by
Lothar von Richthofen. According to Wilhelm Allmenröder, the other pilots was Mohnicke and Simon (or Esser).
It seems more likely that R-D fought Simon in his red Albatros with a green band around fuselage. The same plane in which he was taken prisoner almost a month later. Maybe that also explains why R-D managed to escape. Simon did not posses the same determination and will of Kurt Wolff.
If Wolff had been in the plane R-D most likely would have been shot down dead or taken POW with a shot up plane.
Oskar